


Occult

by NoLifePoints (Vesperbat)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Duel Monsters, During Canon, Gen, sometime between DDM and BC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperbat/pseuds/NoLifePoints
Summary: Otogi recognizes a strange, detached customer as Bakura Ryou, one of Yuugi's crowd. He tries to be friendly, but beneath Bakura's quiet exterior lies something raw, something bitter... something Otogi can't begin to understand.(You could call this... extremely pre-bgship. Kind of.)





	Occult

**Author's Note:**

> [Cryptographic_Delurk](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptographic_Delurk) gave me a really great prompt for a Black Crown encounter between a confused Otogi and a bitter, jealous Ryou during this timeframe. Had to be written.

“I’m making a deck.”

“Oh?” Otogi glanced up from the manga in his lap. He tossed it aside and leaped down from the counter, hiding embarrassment behind casual confidence. He hadn’t even heard the door. “Welcome, welcome! Sorry, you’re our first customer all evening. Making a deck, huh?”

The customer nodded and turned back to browsing foil packets. He seemed content to let the statement hang in the air.

“First time?” asked Otogi.

The customer shook his head.

“Anything I can help you find?”

“Not really.”

Otogi blinked. Normally, customers who said more than “hi” were after something – either help or company or just a captive audience. This one didn’t seem to be interested in any of those. Curious, he approched the Duel Monsters section. “Alright, then. You must have an idea of what you’re looking for. But if you need anything...” Otogi stared down at him.  
  
The customer looked up from his selections and blinked sleepily. “Hm?”

“Hey! You’re friends with Yuugi and the others, aren’t you?” Otogi smiled. It hadn’t been long, but he already felt like Yuugi’s friends were his friends, too.

“Oh. Yeah. You could say that, I guess.”

Otogi nodded. “I knew I’d seen you around. And Honda mentions you sometimes, too. Bakura, right?”

“He does?” That got his attention faster than anything else in their admittedly short interaction. Now Bakura stared at him, booster pack forgotten in his hand, brown eyes wide. He was the one the girls never shut up about, wasn’t he? Otogi could sort of see why. That said, he wondered if Bakura had ever stared at any of them quite so intensely.

“Um- yes, definitely.” Otogi floundered for something to advance the conversation. “Then I’ll give you a discount! Don’t tell them that, though.” The last thing he wanted was to look like he was muscling in on Yuugi’s customers, offering them better deals…

“Oh… thanks.” Just like that, the interest faded. Bakura turned back to the shelf.

Otogi was stranded, floating aimlessly through a conversation that had no clear beginning, middle, or end. He couldn’t just walk away. “He’s, um. He’s coming by later. Honda, I mean.”

“Of course he is.” Bakura shoved a tin box of cards back so hard it banged against the wall of the shelf.

“Excuse me?” Otogi stepped back and struggled to keep from raising his own voice. This was not the interaction he expected from one of Yuugi’s crew.

“… never mind,” said Bakura. “It’s nothing.”

“Are you sure? Because if there’s a problem...” Otogi frowned.

Maybe Bakura held a grudge over Yuugi and Jounouchi. He could wrap his head around that, but no one else seemed to care anymore – least of all Yuugi and Jounouchi themselves. Then again, those two would probably befriend the snake that bit them if it only apologized afterward. It was charming.

There was no time to ponder it further. Bakura began to laugh – softly, under his breath, but his body quivered with each burst of it. “Of course there’s a problem,” he said. “There are all _kinds_  of problems.”

Otogi folded his arms. “Could you tell me what they are, then? I thought I’d say hi to a friend of a friend, and suddenly you’re pissed at me.”

“I-” Bakura’s hand flew to his head. He wasn’t laughing anymore. Neither was Otogi. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d try talking to you, but I guess I’m just not in the mood.”

“That much is obvious.” Otogi started for the counter. “I didn’t want to embarrass you before, but… maybe you’d like to know. Honda said he worries about you.”

“Oh.” Bakura pressed the hand into his forehead, digging the heel into his temple. “Sometimes I think he’s the only one that does.”

“Really? I mean, Yuugi seems to-”

“Sure, Yuugi’s  _nice,_ but he’s too wrapped up in his own troubles to really notice mine. Ah- I don’t blame him for that. He has so much to deal with right now. But Honda… notices things.”

Otogi didn’t know what to do with him. They were nearly strangers, but if they’d gone this far, he might as well try to see it through – for Yuugi and Honda, if nothing else. He approached again and said, “Do you… maybe... want to talk about it?”

Bakura raised his armful of cards. The tins clanked against the gaudy gold ornament he wore around his neck. “I’m making the best of things. Really. I’d have to make this deck either way, so I’m trying to have fun with it while I have the chance.”

“You ‘have to?’” Otogi leaned forward and inspected the haul. Occult sets, all of them.

“I’m tired, Otogi. I’m very tired. I want to fight more, but right now, there isn’t much I can do. Honda tried to help me, but he just doesn’t get it. Still… I was kind of happy.”

“Wait, slow down. I don’t- he tried to help you with deck? Or… to fight someone? Is somebody forcing you to play?” The more Bakura said, the less sense he made. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had been coerced into a game, but why? By whom?

Bakura smiled and shook his head, a tutor taking pity on a dunce. “You won’t get it, either. That’s okay, though. Ring me up, please? I wanted a few of the singles behind the register, too.”

So Otogi rang him up, scanning his cards and counting his cash in a daze. What else was there to do? Bakura stood on one side of a canyon. He stood on the other, unable to make the leap. He wanted Honda now, to tell him what happened. To get a straight answer. To… see him. He just needed to see him.

As he took his bags, Bakura said, “Could you tell Honda I said hi?”

This kid couldn’t read minds, could he? No. That was ridiculous. Forcing one last smile, much closer to his customer smile than any before it, Otogi said, “I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it. I mean, if you want to stay and tell him yourself, you’re welcome to-” Bakura shook his head, and Otogi couldn’t say he minded.

“I have to go, but tell him… I’ll be around.” Bakura gripped the thin plastic handles so tightly that they drove red marks into his skin. “When I can be.”

Otogi watched him go, his small figure dwarfed by the massive displays around him, and sighed. Bakura would be around, drifting in and out of Otogi’s life, hanging in the periphery of his vision. A haunting. He just wasn’t Otogi’s ghost. These weren’t his messages to decipher.


End file.
